Alanna Damu

Alanna Damu
Personal
Affiliation	Federated Suns
Profile
Rank	Captain
Profession	MechWarrior

Alanna Damu was a MechWarrior with the Fifth Syrtis Fusiliers and the First Kathil Uhlans during the Fourth Succession War.

History

Sarna

The Fifth Syrtis Fusiliers, along with the Crater Cobras and Screaming Eagles mercenary units, were assigned to take Sarna in 3029 during Operation RAT of the Fourth Succession War. Their intelligence from the Ministry of Information, Intelligence, and Operations was completely inaccurate, however, and instead of encountering light resistance from planetary militia, they were ambushed by all four regiments of McCarron's Armored Cavalry. They waited for the Fifth to make planetfall before attacking their DropShips as they tried to return to low orbit, trapping everyone on the planet. Then, their 'Mech and vehicle forces pinned them down against the Gray River and slaughtered everyone.

Apocryphal Content Starts

The information after this notice comes from apocryphal sources; the canonicity of such information is uncertain.
Please view the reference page for information regarding their canonicity.

Alanna Damu, a captain with the Fifth's First Battalion, became the ranking officer when General Gordon Hartstone and Colonel Anthony Harkness were KIA. She was unable to contact any JumpShips at the Sarna jump point because the Capellan Confederation was blanketing the entire system with a thick electromagnetic field. With no DropShip support, the CCAF controlling the skies, and the planet's Hyperpulse Generator inexplicably destroyed, she had no way of contacting anyone outside of a 200-klick radius of her position.

Damu led the surviving forces of the Fifth in tracking down and salvaging as much as possible from the downed DropShips she could find. After a long month of dodging hostile forces, a Special Operations BattleMech Company with the Second Crucis Lancers picked up their SOS signal on approach to Sarna and located Damu's team scavenging a crashed Gazelle. Together, they fought back a Liao attack that had followed the Lancers in, before returning to their encampment. With additional 'Mechs and a Leopard-class DropShip at their disposal, they could now function beyond survival.

Hoping to strengthen their numbers and seek answers at the same time, Damu sought out the rouge Fusiliers who allegedly took down the HPG station. Surprisingly, they were still hiding amongst the ruins of the facility and were easily identified as imposters using Fusiliers transponder signals. Damu's forces were able to defeat and capture some of them alive, putting them under enhanced interrogation. It was clear that they wanted to trap the Fifth on Sarna and attacked the HPG to frame House Davion in the eyes of ComStar. They had top grade intelligence training and plenty of information regarding Yorinaga Kurita, a Liao counteroffensive, and plans for an attack on the New Avalon Institute of Science campus, among other seemingly implausible things.

Damu's interrogators were also able to learn the location of all the Maskirovka facilities around the capital city of Sarna, including confirmation that they received a priority message from Tigress months earlier when Warrior House Hiritsu stormed the Third Crucis Lancers' headquarters and stole their unit's MIIO codebooks. As this was the reason the Second Crucis Lancers' Special Ops unit came to Sarna, they led the charge that raided those facilities deep in enemy territory, supported by a small team of Damu's commandos that verified the destruction of the codebooks. With the HPG system down, it was safe to assume the information did not get transmitted off-planet even if they were decoded, thereby completing the Lancers' special assignment.

While regrouping and planning their next moves, Damu's Fusiliers were able to capture a militia scouting patrol and tap into the MAC's comms system, learning that the Crater Cobras and Screaming Eagles were still alive and causing Colonel Archibald McCarron nothing but problems for months and apparently now squarely his main focus. The mercenaries' location was too far away in northern Jacarlos for the Fusiliers to make without abandoning their wounded and prisoners, so they sent the Lancers ahead in their DropShip to make initial contact with them and plan a rendezvous point.

When the Lancers and mercenaries succeeded in destroying a number of regional ECM jamming arrays, allowing long-range communications capable of reaching the system's jump point, they learned that Colonel Ardan Sortek and the Davion Heavy Guards were already in-system and about to make planetfall. The Cobras relayed their coordinates to Sortek at fifty klicks east of the city of Catatonia, notifying that they were pinned down by the Big Mac. Alanna Damu moved the Fusiliers to reinforce their position, allowing their combined strength hold out long enough for the Guards to arrive via an orbital 'Mech drop and push McCarron's forces back, eventually forcing them to retreat off-world.

Apocryphal Content Ends

Kathil

In total, less than a battalion of heavily battered 'Mechs and wounded survivors of the Fifth Fusiliers were extracted from Sarna, largely thanks to the tenacity and skill of Alanna Damu, and all transported to the Federated Suns capital of New Avalon and the medical facilities of the famous New Avalon Institute of Science. Any recouperation Damu experienced was brief, when word reached First Prince Hanse Davion in early August 3029 that House Liao's Death Commandos and Fourth Tau Ceti Rangers were being sent to Kathil to cripple vital Kearny-Fuchida Yare Industries facilities used in the production of JumpShip. With the Federated Suns desperate to save the yards but also lacking time and resources, Damu and the barely rebuilt Omega Company of the Fifth Syrtis Fusiliers joined the Andrew Redburn-led Delta Company of the Davion Light Guards under her nominal March Lord Morgan Hasek-Davion.

Reaching Kathil by the end of August, Alanna Damu accompanied Redburn, Hasek-Davion, and Kathil Capellan March Militia Third Battalion commander Colonel Geraldo de Velez on an rain-drenched inspection of the microwave power transmission dishes used by KFYI to support its many facilities in orbit. Along with the rest, Damu met with KFYI's head Fredek Vebber at the primary broadcast station, turning her offered hand to prevent Vebber kissing it in favor of a handshake instead. Later on 29 August 3029, Damu and her Omega Company was present when Morgan Hasek-Davion briefed the Kathil CMM forces on the upcoming attack and the merger of all units present into a new unit under his command: the First Kathil Uhlans.

Alanna Damu was breveted to major and command of her Omega Company and the first two companies of the Kathil CMM's Third Battalion as the Uhlans' Alpha Battalion. While the troops of the Fifth Syrtis Fusiliers were dismissive of being forced to nursemaid green troops, Hasek-Davion praised their actions in ensuring their survival on Sarna and the need for such qualities in his new "Lions of Davion." Damu's Alpha Battalion would face off against the Fourth Tau Ceti Rangers after they landed on 7 September 3029, stopping their advance and rolling into their left flank, forcing them into a pre-prepared minefield. At a post-combat debriefing with the rest of the Uhlans command staff, Damu indicated that while the Fourth was not as tough as the Death Commandos, she had lost a dozen 'Mechs and eight pilots, two of whom were of the fifteen pilots from the Fusiliers that survived Sarna.

BattleMech

Alanna Damu piloted a Victor.

Behind the Scenes

In MechWarrior 5: Legend of the Kestrel Lancers, Alanna Damu was voiced by Tanya Saari.

Bibliography

• MechWarrior 5: Mercenaries (video game)
• Warrior: Coupé (novel)